Folding cartons



June 5, 1956 L. c. PENNEBAKER FOLDING CARTONS Filed July 21, 1953 United States Patent FOLDING CARTONS Lewis C. Pennebaker, Chattanooga, Tenn., assignor to Container Corporation of America, Chicago, Ill., a

corporation of Delaware Application July 21, 1953, Serial No. 369,331

1 Claim. (Cl. 229-33) The present invention relates to folding cartons and more particularly to an improved one piece carton with cover attached, capable of being shipped in flat knockeddown condition and of being easily erected for packing by the user. Cartons constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention are particularly well adapted for use as suit boxes in retail department and other stores for packing suits and other garments for delivery to the customer, and it is for this use that the present carton has been designed. The invention is however capable of other uses and the same may, if desired, with or without modification, be employed for the packaging of numerous articles other than garments.

One-piece cartons of the type briefly outlined above and as currently and customarily manufactured are possessed of several limitations both in the manufacture as well as in the use thereof. Such cartons have their cover portion of the same depth as their bottom portion and, as a consequence, when each carton is erected, the front wall and the two side walls will present two thicknesses of material while the back wall will present but a single thickness of material and therefore will be structurally weak. To remedy this condition it has been the prac tice to reinforce the back wall with a separate strip or plural strips of cardboard or the like which may be adhered to the interior face of the back wall by a suitable adhesive. This operation has been costly, both from the point of view of the additional material involved and the cost of applying the strip.

The present invention is designed to overcome the above noted limitations that are attendant upon the construction of cartons of this character and, toward this end, it contemplates the provision of an improved carton with lid attached wherein the back wall is adequately reinforced with strips of material which are taken from adjoining regions of the paperboard blank but which remain integral with the folded blank when the box is erected and which furthermore do not impairithe efficiency of the erected carton as a whole for lack of the material in the regions from which they have been obtained.

A second limitation that exists in connection with conventional cartons of this type, particularly those having diagonally scored side walls, resides in the fact that reliance must be placed upon the contents for support to maintain the carton in its square erected condition becauseof the tendency for the unloaded or empty carton to collapse in the absence of internal support; This limitation, results in considerable diflic'ulty in the actual loading of the carton. Even after the carton has been loaded, unless the contents is of a substantial nature, there maybe a partial collapse of the carton side walls due to the tendency for these walls to spring inwardly and the cover side walls must be relied upon to conceal such partial collapse and to give the carton a reasonable amount of stacking strength.

To obviate this latter difficulty encountered in the loading of conventional one-piece cover-attached cartons, the present invention contemplates the provision of such a carton having the usual diagonally scored side walls but in which an additional strip of material in the blank adjacent and integral with each side wall assumes a position where it may be folded laterally of the diagonal score or fold line so as to provide an edgewise reinforcement for the side wall against collapse and also in which the additional strip assumes a position wherein an edge thereof abuts the rear Wall and rests upon an edge of the adjacent rear wall reinforcing strip for counteracting the tendency of side Wall collapse as well as for ready and facile location of this strip during rapid erection and loading of the carton.

The provision of a one-piece, collapsible, cover attached carton possessing the advantageous features briefly outlined above being among the principal objects of the invention, numerous other objects and advantages thereof not at this time enumerated will become apparent as the following description ensues.

In the accompanying single sheet of drawings forming a part of this specification, a preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated.

In these drawings:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a carton constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention and showing a portion of the cover closed upon the carton body and a fragmentary portion thereof in partially opened condition to more clearly reveal the nature of the invention.

Fig. 2 is a fragmentary inside view taken in the vicinity of the rear wall of the partially erected carton, and

Fig. 3 is a plan view of a blank from which the carton of Figs. 1 and 2 is formed.

Referring now to the drawings in detail and in particular to Fig. 3 wherein the blank from which the improved carton is formed is shown, a transverse fold line a divides the blank generally into a body portion 10 and a cover portion 12 (see also Fig. l). The body portion 10 includes a bottom panel 14, a front wall panel 16, side wall panels 18 and a rear wall panel 20, to which latter panel the cover portion 12 is hingedly secured in a manner and for purposes that will be made clear presently. The cover portion 12 includes a top panel 22, a front flange panel 24, and side flange panels 26.

A pair of front corner sustaining flaps 23 extend laterally from the opposite ends of the front wall panel 16. The side wall panels 18 are diagonally scored as at b to provide triangular glue flaps 28a. The cover side flange panels 26 are diagonally scored as at c to provide triangular hinge fiaps 3% to which there are connected corner sustaining flaps 30 designed for gluing to the stippled surface areas 301) on the inside of the front flange panel 24.

The arrangement of the bottom front corners and of the cover front corners just described is purely conventional and no claim is made herein to any novelty associated with the same, the novelty of this invention residing rather in the construction of the composite wall panel including the panel 20 and in the means for preventing collapsing of the side wall panels 18 in the erected carton structure, which construction and means will be more particularly set forth and claimed hereinafter.

The side wall panels 18 have hingedly connected thereto along a hinge line d laterally extending, relatively narrow elongated bracing strips 32 which, in the form of the invention illustrated, extend from the hinge line e existing between the bottom panel 14 and rear wall panel 20 forwardly to approximately the transverse median line of the bottom 14. A diagonal score line 1 extends across each side wall 18 and is continued through Patented June 5;, 1956 the attached strip 32 to define a triangular portion defined by the sides 1, g, and h. The strips 32 are termed herein bracing strips inasmuch as they are adapted to be turned laterally and inwardly of the erected carton at an angle of 90 to the plane of the erected side walls to brace the latter against the normal tendency thereof to collapse, all in a manner that will appear presently.

Each side wall panel 18 has hingedly connected thereto along the line g an elongated reinforcing strip 34 of a width substantially equal to the width of the panels 18 and 26 and arranged in alignment with these two latter panels. The strips 34 are completely severed from the panels 26 by a transverse out k which is preferably located in a transverse plane spaced from the hinge line a a distance somewhat less than one-half the extent of the back wall panel 20. The position of the cuts k and the consequent extent of the reinforcing strips 34 are not critical since these strips are provided for the purpose of reinforcing the rear wall 20 by gluing thereof to the glue areas indicated by stippling at 34b. The closer these cuts k are made to the hinge line 6, the shorter will be the extent of the reinforcing strips and, since it is not desired that the two strips 34 shall overlap, the cuts are made as specified above.

It will of course be understood that the first steps in erecting the blank of Fig. 3 will be to glue the stippled areas 28b and 30b of the front corner assemblies to their respective glue flaps in the usual manner. The reinforcing strips 34 will likewise be adhered to the stippled areas 34b. It will be understood that these steps are normally effected on automatic equipment so that each carton is already suitable for shipment in fiat condition with a series of similarly unexpanded cartons.

The setting up or erecting of the unexpanded carton is a semi-automatic operation in that after the cover 22 has been lifted or turned back, its weight, acting upon the resistance of the hinge line a, will tend to partially erect the rear wall 20. Such partial erection of the rear wall will, through a sort of linkage arrangement including the triangular parts defined by the sides g and h, effects partial erection of the side wall panels 18 and the front wall panel 16. Thereafter, in order to fully erect the side walls and rear wall, it is merely necessary to spread the side walls upwardly and outwardly, utilizing the thumbs against the inner side of the side walls and the third and fourth fingers of each hand against the outer side of these walls. When the side walls are perfectly erect, the index fingers may be employed for pushing the bracing strips 32 inwardly to horizontal position about the fold line d to brace or lock the side walls 1 in their vertical positions.

Reference to Fig. 1 will reveal the fact that the strips 34 are slightly narrower than the back wall 20 and are glued to the back wall 20 in such positions that the upper edges in thereof extend horizontally a slight distance below the upper edge a of the back wall. These upper edges m of the strips 34 constitute in effect ledge por-.

tions which are adapted to receive the end edges of the bracing strips 32 to limit downward swinging movement of these latter strips beyond the horizontal during rapid erection of the carton.

From the above description it will be observed that, with the plane of the bracing strips 32 existing at right angles to the planes of the side walls 26, the diagonal fold lines i will be maintained rigid against collapse and as a result thereof reliance need not be placed upon the character or rigidity of the contents of the box to hold these side walls rigid as is the case in connection with conventional one-piece boxes with lid attached.

Finally, it is to be noted that even if the operator fails to press the bracing strips 32 inwardly sufficiently far as to cause their end edges to seat upon the ledge portions defined by the edges m of the reinforcing flaps 34, subsequent closure of the cover section 12 will effectively cam the bracing strips to their horizontal bracing positions and into engagement with the ledge portions 111.

The invention is not to be limited to the exact arrangement of parts shown in the accompanying drawings or described in this specification as various changes in the details of construction may be resorted to without departing from the spirit of the invention. Only insofar as the invention has particularly been pointed out in the accompanying claim is the same to be limited.

I claim:

A folding carton comprising a body portion and a cover portion; said body portion including a bottom, side walls hingedly connected to opposite margins of said bottom, a front wall and a rear wall hingedly con nected to opposite margins of said bottom, means hingedly joining said front and side walls, reinforcing strips hingedly connected to said side walls along the rear edges thereof, and a bracing strip hingedly connected to the upper edge of each side wall; said side walls each having a diagonal fold line extending thereacross from the juncture point of said bottom, side wall and reinforcing strip to the upper edge of said side wall, thus defining a triangular piece capable of assuming an intermediate position between the side wall and reinforcing strip when the side wall is folded inwardly upon the bottom; said reinforcing strips being adhesively secured to said rear wall and having a length substantially greater than the height of said rear wall but less than onehalf the width of said rear wall and a height slightly less than the height of said rear wall, and having their upper edges located below the upper edge of said rear wall by an amount substantially equal to the thickness of the folding carton material; said bracing strips each extending forwardly from the rear edge of the side wall upon which it is hinged across the juncture of said diagonal fold line with the upper edge of the side wall and having a fold line thereacross in alignment with said diagonal fold line, whereby said carton may be collapsed when said bracing strip is in the same plane as said side wall, and each bracing strip also having its rear edge at right angles to the upper edge of said side wall, whereby said rear edge will rest upon the upper edge of said reinforcing strip when said bracing strip is extending inwardly at right angles to said side wall to limit the downward movement of said bracing strip and effectively prevent collapse of said carton; and said cover portion including a top hingedly connected to the upper edge of said rear wall and inwardly foldable front and side flanges hingedly connected to said top, each of said side flanges having a length substantially equal to the sum of the length of said top plus the height of said rear wall less the length of the adjacent one of said reinforcing strips.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Re. 23,266 Thomas Sept. 5, 1950 639,269 McMillan Dec. 19, 1899 644,857 Gair Mar. 6, 1900 

